MIT engineering students tour Swansea desalination facility

A group of MIT engineering students talked molecules, membranes and saline levels in a “high science” talk with Swansea Water Superintendant Robert Marquis.

The students on Friday afternoon arrived at the Swansea Desalination plant in a big green Peter Pan bus for a tour and engineering lesson.

Deborah Allard

A group of MIT engineering students talked molecules, membranes and saline levels in a “high science” talk with Swansea Water Superintendant Robert Marquis.

The students on Friday afternoon arrived at the Swansea Desalination plant in a big green Peter Pan bus for a tour and engineering lesson.

“Our research is in water,” MIT student David Warsinger said.

Warsinger said he thought desalination would become more mainstream in years to come.

“I think we’re going to see a lot more of this,” he said. “We’re exhausting our reservoirs.”

Student Bo Yu had similar thoughts.

“I think this is a good start,” he said.

The Swansea Desalination Plant, completed in 2009, was built after three emergency water shortages occurred in town between 1999 and 2005.

Marquis told the students how wells and storage tanks went dry and the town started to impose fines on residents watering their gardens, and eventually regulations.

The entire project has a price tag of $20 million and will be able to eliminate the town’s water emergencies and provide fresh drinking water.

Brackish, salty water is pumped from the Palmer River, treated, and is capable of being distributed by pipelines to faucets in homes and businesses all over town.

Marquis said the plant has been cleared and is waiting for one final permit.
“This is the first publicly held desalination plant in Massachusetts,” Marquis said.

A privately held desalination plant in Dighton, which provides water to the city of Brockton, has had many problems because of its private status. It is costing the town $5.8 million this year, and pumped no water in 2012.

Marquis told the students about his own problems in taking the Swansea desalination project to fruition.

“The project was met with great resistance (from the state),” Marquis said. “For the past 30 years, Massachusetts has sought to control growth (by using) the public water supply.”

Marquis told them how the Water District had to request state public meeting minutes when he learned they were trying to stop the project, and eventually had to file suit.

“It’s been a very difficult process,” Marquis said. “Nevertheless, we got here.”

The engineering students, who were very well versed in desalination lingo, found the real-life experience of the talk and tour added depth to their studies.